Patrick Wright preparing to call biggest game of season

BATON ROUGE - As the LSU women's basketball team got ready for their game Wednesday night, the man who has been calling the plays for years has more than basketball on his mind.

Patrick Wright is filling in for Jim Hawthorne Saturday night. Hawthorne will miss his first football game in 35 years, recovering from a medical procedure.

No small task, it will be Wright's first time calling an LSU regular season football game.

"I'm very excited," he said. "I would be lying if I told you I wasn't going to have butterflies Saturday night when the times comes."

LSU sports run in Wright's blood. In addition to calling LSU women's basketball games since 1991, he's also been calling softball for 20 years and kept LSU football stats since 1994.

Wright says he's been getting calls and emails from family and friends wishing him luck, including a blessing from Hawthorne himself.

"It's a dream come true," he said. "Something that I've dreamed of for a long time. I've done a lot of LSU sporting events but LSU, Alabama football is as big as it gets from an LSU sports standpoint."

Wright says since he got the call last week, he's been preparing and by Saturday he'll be ready.

Hawthorne is retiring at the end of the 2015-16 basketball season. Wright could be filling in for him again in the coming weeks but says he's taking it one game at a time.